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UN warns of record El Niño
The World Meteorological Organization warned on Thursday that El Niño is forecast to become the strongest in four decades of comparable records and is almost certain to persist through February 2027.
“almost certain to persist through February”
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo told reporters in Geneva that if the current trajectory continues, it may be stronger than anything since monitoring began, “so literally off the charts we have used for the past four decades.”
The WMO said El Niño is expected to strengthen to “very strong” levels in the coming months, with effects on global weather and climate potentially persisting well into 2027.
The UN weather agency said the phenomenon occurs when surface waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean become unusually warm, triggering widespread changes in atmospheric circulation, winds, pressure and rainfall patterns around the world.
The WMO also said the powerful 2023-24 El Niño contributed to 2024 being the warmest year on record, and “we should not be surprised if this record is broken.”
Scientists debate climate influence
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said the growing El Niño to Australia’s east is already breaking heat records and forecasts show it may easily surpass previous events, while separate research suggests climate change has greatly shortened the odds of the event hitting record extremes.
Felicity Gamble, a senior climatologist at the BoM, said the relative sea surface temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region for August were likely to be between 2.2C and 2.3C above average, higher than any previous August since 1950.
Gamble said forecasts were suggesting relative sea surface temperatures in that region could peak over 3C above average, compared with the highest previous figure of 2.6C observed in January 1983.
In preliminary research from the University of Melbourne, Dr Andrew King said the analysis found climate change had made “an event of this magnitude” six times more likely, adding: “It seems likely there is a human fingerprint emerging in this event.”
The WMO and UN leaders framed the risk in global terms, with António Guterres warning: “El Niño is being supersized before our eyes.”
Extreme weather risks through 2027
The WMO warned that El Niño’s knock-on effects will continue well into 2027, raising risks of extreme heat, drought and flooding while threatening livelihoods and economies across the globe.
“multiply and cascade as El Niño intensifies”
Celeste Saulo said droughts, floods and extreme heat were already causing disruption and devastation, and warned these impacts would “multiply and cascade as El Niño intensifies.”
The WMO said it was stepping up preparedness and early warning efforts, and urged disaster management authorities and climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture, health, energy and water to prepare.
The UN weather agency said it had an “exceptionally high likelihood of nearly 100%” that El Niño will persist through February 2027, and classified the event as set to reach the highest level of its weak, moderate, strong or very strong scale.
The WMO also said the index measuring sea surface temperature anomalies in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific has strengthened from an average of 1.5 degrees Celsius above normal between May and July, with weekly values between late July and mid-August ranging from about 2.2 to 2.6 degrees Celsius above average, indicating continued intensification.